Letters to You
by RachelDalloway
Summary: If Rose were to write letters to Jack, this is how they might go.


AN: This is just the first one, but more shall come as time and liking for this one allows.

_April 14__th__, 1913_

Jack,

I can hardly believe it's been a year. Sometimes it feels as though those days were a lifetime ago, but mostly it feels as though it just happened. I dream about you—every night, I dream of you. I see you, beautiful, radiant golden you! It breaks my heart all over again when I wake up. Every morning I feel as though I've lost you again, that you were given back to me for a few precious hours and then snatched away.

It's childish and stupid of me to say, so please find it in your heart to forgive me my sweet Jack, but as this day has approached I can't stop thinking about how unfair everything is. Why would we even be allowed to meet, to feel that delicious spark of electricity when we touched, to laugh loudly and joyously—the most joyful and purest laughter I had ever experienced?—to gaze into each other's eyes and find the missing part of ourselves reflecting back at us, to reach the kind of bliss even the greatest poets fail to capture, if we were just going to be ripped apart before our time together could truly begin? Tell me, please, if you've gained some insight into the overall puzzle that is this life after being where you are all this time because I can't stand how unjust and senseless it all seems!

I saw an artist on the pier yesterday. His hair fell into his eyes just like yours did. He was bent over a charcoal sketch, so absorbed by his work he never even noticed me staring. I watched him until he left a few hours later. I couldn't tear my eyes away from him. I imagined that's what you looked like when you were here, but I have no way of ever really knowing.

I see things like that sometimes, things that remind me so much of you I'm sure there's no other explanation for them than that you're behind it. That somehow you're sending me signs, reminding me you still exist somewhere. Are you happy where you are? Is it the warm, beautiful place I imagine you in? Are you still there, on the ship? There are times when I'm certain you standing next to me, and if I reach out I'll touch you. But I can't look because if I do you won't be there after all. And I'm always too afraid to reach out.

I wake up in the middle of the night sometimes, shaking and crying from my dreams, and I feel you with me then too. If I close my eyes and lay very still I can feel your arms around me. You still feel so strong! I feel so safe during those moments, as if nothing could ever hurt me. Is it selfish of me to think that somehow you'd stop it if something were going to hurt me? You sacrificed so much for me, how dare I presume you'd waste the time you could be spending in heavenly bliss worrying about me?

Do you know I prayed to have your child? Every day until I knew it was too late, it wasn't going to happen. I wanted so desperately to have living proof of our love, a piece of you I could love and teach and give drawing pencils to and help grow into a person as wonderful as you were. But it wasn't meant to be, was it? That's what I tell myself. I don't always believe it—how could a love like ours _not_ have been meant to be? It doesn't make any sense to me, no matter how hard I try to understand. But then again, _we_ didn't make much sense to everyone else, did we?

I haven't been doing that badly, not in some ways. I have a small apartment with a glorious view of the ocean. I watch the tides come in every night from my kitchen window. I did all of the things we said we would. I came to Santa Monica—it's where I've been since last year. I went to the pier and rode the horses and got drunk on cheap beer and rode the rollercoaster and even tried spitting like a man again. I received more than a few stares for that one, let me tell you.

I'm not happy, but I'm not unhappy either. Does that make sense? I've never felt so free in my life—it's the most amazing feeling!—but I wish you were here to share it with me. I wish you were here to see how brightly the fire burns now. Can you see it? Can you see everything I do? I try so hard to keep my promise. Can you tell? I like to think you can. I like to think you're proud of the person I've become, that you don't regret loving me.

But mostly, when I get so lonely it hurts and I can barely breathe, I like to think you'll come walking through the door. Just stroll in as if you were coming in from any mundane errand. I like to think I've imagined spending the past year alone, and you're really still with me—actually, physically with me.

If you are, please come home. I can't stand waking up each morning without you. It's like going to sleep with your heart there and waking up to find it gone.

Love forever,

Your wife—do you mind that I say that?—Rose Dawson.


End file.
